Hiya.  Elisabeth Braddock and the X-Men are Marvel's, and I don't make any money from borrowing them.  Suing me would be silly.  You don't wanna be silly, do you?

Kai is...wait...what's this?  Am I...?  Oh my goodness...is this possible?   I'm actually writing a _serious_ X-Men fanfic
_without Kai?!?_

Why yes, yes I am. ;-)  Got around to thinking about Betsy living without her telepathy, and viola!  Wrote a story.  Read
it!  Tell me whatcha think!  Pretty please?

Hm.  Guess this one’ll have to be dedicated to Poi Lass again, who’s been sneaking me chocolate during my imprisonment by a rather possessive Kai. ;-)

Comments to Kaylee1109@aol.com.

Enjoy!

Psylocke: Blind
By Kaylee (Kaylee1109@aol.com)

    She walked the busy streets with a strong, determined stride, head up and eyes forward in the manner New Yorkers quickly learned to adopt.  An exotic woman.  A beautiful woman.  A woman who drew more than a few covert and not so covert looks from those she passed.  Violet, delicately slanted eyes in a dusky Asian face.  Matching violet hair confined in a tail to whip spiritedly behind her.  A slender body marked with taut muscles sliding smoothly beneath skin.  Elisabeth Braddock was a woman to catch the eye, and she knew it.

    But it didn't seem to matter much anymore.

    Once, these teeming streets would have put nearly unbearable pressure on her.  The mental voices would have battered at her brain in a cacophony of noise that could only be shut out by intense effort.  Her face would have been tight and tense with strain...but now it was tight and tense with the lack of it.

    Even amidst the myriad of voices that mixed into a senseless muddle, even surrounded by honking horns and squealing tires of cabbies fighting for the wealthiest customers, even enfolded by all this chaotic _noise_...the world was eerily silent for Betsy.  Empty.  Blank.  _Gone._

    Head blind.  She'd used the term many times before.  It meant a person who didn't _see_ with thoughts, who didn't _hear_ the meaning behind words.   A part of her had always pitied those that were so.  How could a person _live_ in a narrow world of only three dimensions?  She'd never wanted to imagine such a state of being.  And yet here she was...living it.

    <I never knew the world could be so...flat.>

    _Meaningless_ was the word she wanted, and she knew it.  But she couldn't say so; not even to herself.  All her life Betsy Braddock had been a _survivor_; a tigress with claws hidden in velvet gloves.  When Fate had tied her life to the X-Men's, she'd welcomed the chance to finally, _finally_ become the woman she'd always longed to be.  She'd fought at their side, become one of them, and when the time had come...she'd given her life with them.  Friends.  The closest of family.

    Strangers.

    _Everyone_ was a stranger now.  _Everyone_ spoke a language foreign to her...nonsense words that skipped merrily
along while thoughts traveled in an entirely different direction.  The art in that social deception had once been visible to her.  She'd smiled a gracious smile and played along, something deep in her eyes twinkling at the game she tolerated for the sake of normalcy.  A tigress always watching, always waiting, always _knowing_ when it was time to strike.

    But now...

    <Get over it, Elisabeth.  You gave up your telepathy to keep the Shadow King contained.  No point in sorrowing over it.  You might well have saved society in the process.>

    Yes.  All true. 

    But that didn't make the world any less...silent.

    She stopped for a bit to watch some teenagers putting on an impromptu street performance; some sort of combination
between miming and dancing.  The kids were quite good, and for a time she gave herself over to the observation, letting
herself get lost in the careful fantasy they constructed with every graceful move and elaborate, exaggerated expression.  It
was a welcome, a _needed_ release...and yet it barely numbed the hollow ache at the core of her soul.

    Her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her away from the boisterously encouraging crowd and back to the aimless path she'd been walking.  Why had she bothered to come to the city today?  What had she hoped to gain?   Perhaps the smallest inkling, the tiniest clue that she could still _hear_; that she wasn't _blind_...

    <I _am_ blind.  And deaf.  And mute.  I've survived worse.>

    It wasn't _survival_ she needed, though...it was _life._  And she was realizing more and more that there was indeed a
difference.

    The sun lowered a bit more.  Some of the milling mass of humanity cleared the sidewalks, though this city never truly
slept.  Her feet complained at the miles she'd put on them today, but she paid no mind.  _Why_ had she come here?  She
_knew_ that the world was now dark to her; hell, it had been her bloody _choice!_   She'd _willingly_ given up that part of herself to save her friends, to save _more_ than her friends, and if she had the same options laid before her now she'd make the same decision without hesitation.  It was the _warrior's_ choice – to sacrifice Self for others...and Elisabeth had been a warrior even long before she'd been given a body to reflect that.

    <But it's so...so dark...>

    She noticed suddenly that the crowds had indeed thinned and only a handful of people made their busy way along the
sidewalks now.  Street performers were wrapping up their shows and preparing to head for whatever apartment or alley
they called home.  Only a few were left trying to earn some last change for dinner, for breakfast, for liquor.  Her shoulders
slumped unconsciously, marring her proud bearing.  Whatever she'd come here to find...wasn't going to be found today. 
Perhaps it was time to leave...

    And then she heard it.  A voice so deep it thrummed through the nerves and tangled itself irresistibly around the heart,
pulling with gentle tugs and guiding her unerringly towards its source.  Baritone, melodic, flowing outwards in rich song and music that needed no outside support.  She felt her heart start to match the rhythmic pounding of the subtle beat as her tired legs forgot their exhaustion and carried her to the singer.

    He gave no sign that he noticed her, his voice pouring its completely human power into the air.  She studied him as she
let the music travel into her, travel through her.  Skinny enough for bones to clearly mark the coal-dark skin.  Short, carefully groomed hair gone more salt than pepper with the years.  A face so unremarkable as to be remarkable.  Eyes hidden behind cheap dark shades.  He sang, and she didn't even hear the words that marked the tones.  The words weren't important.  It was the _meaning_ in them that was, and his deep voice carried that through with no need for translation.

    The song ended.  Another started.  She stood enthralled and forgot aching feet.  Forgot the vague buzz at the back of her thoughts that had whispered "wasted time" when she'd stopped to watch the earlier performers.   Forgot the empty dark chasm in her soul that had sent her out here today, begging to be filled.  Eyes that had too often been fierce or dangerous or cold now softened in response to this voice that stroked seductively at her mind, calling to...something...inside.

    He gave her a third song before falling silent; gave it like a gift just for her.  And when he was through he smiled, teeth
flashing brightly against shadowy skin.  "You like the songs?"

    She shook herself out of her near-trance with a start.  Had she really gotten so lost in the music?  "Yes," she told him.  "Very much.  You have an incredible voice."

    The gray head didn't turn towards her even when he smiled, though she knew that had been meant solely for her.  She
noticed then the plain wooden cane leaning against the wall beside him, and with another little internal jolt she realized that
he was blind behind the dark glasses.  "Thank you, miss."  His smile quirked up a little at the corner in a slightly mischievous expression.  "It's how I earn a living," he said casually, gesturing slightly towards the turned-up hat in front of him.

    Betsy flushed a bit and immediately dug into the pocket of her light coat, digging out several bills and crouching to place them in the hat.  "You could be famous with that voice."

    Unselfconsciously, he scooped the money from the hat and pocketed it, then clamped the hat to his snow-capped head and reached for his cane as he stood.   "I had my brush with fame, miss.  I was an artist.  Even have some work in the museum."

    "An artist?  Why did you--?"  She realized suddenly the answer to her question and flushed scarlet again, dropping her eyes in embarrassment.   Of course a man couldn't paint if he couldn't _see._

    He seemed to take no offense.  "Time takes something from each of us, miss.  For me, it was my eyes.  For you it may well be something different."

    It struck hard, deep, forcibly reminding her of all that was now utterly _lost_ to her.  She backed an unconscious step. 
"How...how do you live with it?"  Her voice was low, nearly a whisper.   She wanted to choke the words back down into her throat, but...

    The smile left his mouth.  He leaned on the cane a bit, blind eyes staring in her general direction.  That powerful voice
came again, caressing along her skin.  "Once, I created worlds with my hands.   I thought that I saw _everything,_ and I tried to capture it all on canvass so that everyone could see it.  I don't know how many hours I would spend studying the way a bit of fabric folded...the way a wrinkled face caught the light..."  He shrugged one shoulder slightly.  "The world was beautiful, and I saw all of it."   She started to say something else – what, she didn't really know – but he raised a hand to silence her.  "Wait.  I think you need to hear this.   You need to understand..."  That startling smile came again, and he tapped lightly at an ear.  "Once, I saw it all.  Now...I _hear_ it."   She was silent; tense and strung tight in unconscious defiance at the very _thought_ that anything could ever _replace_ what she had lost.  He didn't seem to notice.  "I hear it, and I still try to capture it for everyone else."   A slim dark finger pressed against the smiling lips.  "I still paint the pictures, miss.  It's only the brush that's changed."  He reached his hand up to adjust the fit of his hat, tugging on the brim in a somehow quaint salute to her.   "It's been a pleasure, but I have to be getting on home.  Come back sometime...I'll sing a song for you."

    She watched as he turned to leave, extending his cane out to tap a confident path along the nearly empty walkway.  The thin, proud shoulders didn't slump.  The old back was as straight as age would allow.  Someone laughed from a room
high above the street, and she saw his head turn slightly to trace the sound.

    Slowly, Betsy resumed her walking.  A short while later she hailed a cab, climbing into the back seat with a thousand
milling thoughts filling her brain.

    All of them were _hers._

    "Where to, ma'am?"

    Her eyes raised to meet the cabby's in the rearview mirror.   "Salem Center," she answered.  The cab gave a little lurch as he pulled back onto the street.  The cabby muttered an ill-tempered curse at the motion, and she turned her head to catch the word.  He glanced apologetically in the mirror.

    "Sorry, ma'am.  Mouth gets ahead of my brain sometimes."

    "I don't mind."  She shifted forward on the seat, violet eyes marking each passing car by the headlights that flickered over them.  The cabby's license was pinned prominently on the dashboard of the car to assure any customers that he was
indeed a good enough driver to deserve one.  She wondered suddenly if she'd ever bothered to _look_ at one of these
before.  "Tony Costella?  You're Italian?"

    "Yes, ma'am," he confirmed with a grin.  "And proud of it."  Yes, he decidedly was.  The pride changed the tone of his
voice just a bit, lifting the tone slightly and glinting in his reflected eyes.   Betsy noted the faint nuances with unfamiliar
interest; small clues as to what went on inside a mind she could no longer touch...

    At least, not the way she used to.  "Tell me about yourself," she invited.

    Tony Costella needed no more encouragement.  He smiled broadly and began to talk, his utterly normal voice rising and falling on different words, his expressive face flitting from expression to expression to add emphasis to each subject he tackled.  He told her of a wife.  Four children, one of whom just brought home an 'A' on his report card – his first, and both his parents were ecstatic.  He complained enthusiastically about politics, cheerfully admitting that he understood none of it, and then rambled at length about his theories on solving crime and world hunger, barely stopping for a breath before launching into a detailed, flavored description of a half-dozen interesting people he'd picked up over the past month of driving the cab.   Tony was a very talkative man, and he contentedly rattled on during the entire cab ride.

    And Betsy _listened._

--end--